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the warehouse.
You know of considerable advances in technology which could both improve the physical
movement of goods within the warehouse and the way in which the stocks are controlled.
Twelve staff were currently employed within the warehouse. Three were used for internal
transfer of goods between the various areas of the production plant.
Distribution
Burke Engineering owned a fleet of six trucks, two large and four medium sized, which
were used to deliver the completed orders from warehouse to customer or to the docks. All
of these vehicles were more than 6 years old and had a high level of breakdowns.
The drivers averaged two accidents a year each, and insurance costs had risen steadily as
a result. Though there were fluctuations in demand, it was rare that all lorries and drivers
were out of the factory at the same time. You found that on average only three out of the
eight were on the road at any one time, and that the length of journeys had steadily
diminished over the past three years. Because there were a variety of delivery tasks, the
available vehicles were often not suitable. Often large vehicles were carrying small loads.
The information that you are collecting on distribution costs suggests that the company
was losing considerable amounts of money in this area.
Administration
Separated from the production area by a large car park was the administration block, built
5 years previously on two floors, occupying a total of 1000 square metres. It contained the
Finance, Marketing and Sales departments together with the directors' offices and
secretarial services. The Finance Department of 32 included the data processing unit, and
the company computer. This had been installed 4 years previously, initially for payroll
management. It now carried out some of the other accounts functions, though inventory
control, order processing, and accounts payable were still manually produced.
The main reason for this slow conversion of accounts systems to the computer appeared
to be a combination of inertia and lack of computing expertise within the department. The
Data Processing manager had made detailed recommendations concerning future
progress, few of which had been effectively implemented. The accounts department
prepared a monthly management statement which was circulated to the board and to
outside shareholders.
This remained the only regular and consistent management information that had been
available before your re-evaluation of the information needs of the company. Also
reporting to the Financial Director were the Transport manager (with responsibility for the
company cars and other vehicles), the Company secretary, and the Security manager. The
secretarial pool was housed next to the Finance Department. All senior managers (those
earning in excess of €40,000) were entitled to a secretary, with others using a secretarial
pool. All secretaries had electric typewriters. Only two had any word processing
experience. None of the current management with the exception of some of the sales staff,
the project managers in the technical department, the data processing manager (who has
resigned since your arrival at the company) and most of the technical support engineers
had any computing expertise. Little attempt had been made to provide training in the
development of computer skills.
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